Serious faith for misfits, lousy joiners, and other homesick souls
Day 13: I will hold it for you.
Perhaps some of the best news of hope is that when you lose it, I can hold it for you. Let me know when you need some.
Funny How when you ask for it, it multiplies and I have more too. None us us can sustain a perfect anything. But hope is a collective virtue and the vary nature of it is that it is not sustained by me alone.
For the full 29 days you can go here.
5 Five Lessons from Advent:
Today is the feast of St Nicholas. The human who gave rise to many legends that have become, among other things, Santa Claus. What the legends of St Nicholas have in common are both a compassion for the poor and a wit of execution. The Old St Nick, apparently had a knack for cleverly executed charity, sometimes with a little cheek. Sneaking gold dowries to the daughters off a poor man though an opened window, or more famously leaving gifts of one kind or another in stockings or shoes of those who needed them most was entirely his style.
“Allan” greeted me at the door with an enthusiasm that frankly would have scared me if it hadn’t made me so happy to be alive. He was in his late fifties 6’3″ thin like a coat rack with a smile that made his eyes disappear. This time of year I can only think to call him jolly. Allan has a unique way of lighting up a place. It was hard for me to believe that he was anything other than a ray of light, but he once was something else, which only makes his story that much more beautiful…
I lived for three months in Calcutta, India with the purpose of working with Mother Teresa. She is after all a really big deal. And so is Ganesh, for one small act he did for me changed me more meeting Mother Teresa.
Last night I saw a friend again that I have not seen for awhile. I was nervous about seeing him because of how we last left each other. What I left knowing is that we both desired our friendship more than we desired to look backward and be right. We forgave.
“Jesus called to himself a child – the essence of one who is powerless, dependent, needy, little, and poor. He placed the child ‘in the midst of them,’ as a concrete, visible sacrament of how the Kingdom looks. Jesus’ act with the child is interesting. In many of our modern, sophisticated congregations, children are often viewed as distractions. We tolerate children only to the extent they promise to become “adults” like us. Adult members sometimes complain they cannot pay attention to the sermon, they cannot listen to the beautiful music, when fidgety children are beside them in the pews. “Send them away,” many adults say. Create “Children’s Church” so these distracting children can be removed in order that we adults can pay attention.
Interestingly, Jesus put a child in the centre of his disciples, “in the midst of them,” in order to help them pay attention. The child, in Jesus’ mind, was not an annoying distraction. The child was a last-ditch effort by God to help the disciples pay attention to the odd nature of God’s kingdom. Few acts of Jesus are more radical, countercultural, than his blessing of children.”
* I wrote this yesterday evening 12/1/11. To my great surprise (chronological) baby #2, Matthew, was born at 11:45 last night. It is to him I promise to share his hope and to whom I dedicate todays reflection…
Babies
Lately, there is a lot of them in my neighborhood. WIthin one mile of my house three babies are being born in as many months. Three. I feel like even I am going to be changing a lot of diapers just by law of odds. I think having babies is an extraordinary act of hope. This is, of course, true because it is some kind of faith in the life beyond our own lives being worth living. This alone inhabits the essence of trust. But that is not all…
I graduated a semester early from high school and tried getting work as an actor. I was cast in an educational film which provided the opportunity to meet a person with AIDS for the first time. Something clicked in me and I felt an enormous deep inner compulsion to held ease the suffering, for at the time the best treatments would only add a handful of painful years to one’s life. That was then …
The “Desplazados” varied group of Mexican citizens who for a variety of reasons since 1994, including fall out from NAFTA, have been “displaced.” hence the name. You may have heard of the famous masked resistance group called the “Zapatistas.” Since 1994 Chiapas, Mexico southern most state has lived in low intensity warfare, struggling to preserve their ways of life, culture, land and health I went there with a Christian Peacemaking Team to visit the area of conflict and to meet, “Las Abejas,” (the Bees) a nonviolent Christian group. I was eager to learn from them. I did not expect to learn so much about knowing when to dance and when to mourn. I would have got it backwards.
